


Among Thickets

by saizoswifey



Category: Samurai Love Ballad: PARTY, 天下統一恋の乱 | Sakura Amidst Chaos | Samurai Love Ballad (Visual Novel), 天下統乱 Love Ballad | Samurai Love Ballad (Video Game)
Genre: Cunnilingus, F/M, Fingering, NSFW, blood mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 12:14:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13317882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saizoswifey/pseuds/saizoswifey
Summary: Resigned to death, Saizo finds himself saved by an unexpected Little Lady. As his strength and health return, their relationship grows deeper.





	Among Thickets

**Author's Note:**

> This was a Tumblr gift exchange fic!

__All he heard were the caw of crows. These stretches of time swept passed underneath their wings. Laying there on the futon he could see their black bodies dancing and fluttering. Even with his cloudy vision he could make out their shapes dotting the branches like splotches of ink perched above his head. Only these splotches cried out. A warning. Then came the sound of rain, the smell of wet earth carried in through the open door by a spring breeze that triggered an ache in his wounds.

  
“Sorry!” he heard her shout as she entered the room. Heard her light, familiar footsteps. Felt the rhythmic vibrations in the floor underneath him as she ran on the balls of her bare feet to the open shoji, abruptly sliding it closed.

  
She was kneeling at his side now. “Did the cold wake you? That really swept through fast…” She shivered slightly in the shoulders, a grossly apologetic look on her face. “I would have shut the door sooner. I know how you hate the rain. You get this deep crease above your nose.” She brushed a finger lightly between his brows, like smoothing a wrinkle in a cloth. “Right there, and your jaw tightens a bit.” In truth, she found this expression of his to be a bit handsome.

  
As usual she talked away, all the while Saizo’s face remained stiff still, his gaze fixed to the worn beams in the ceiling. She had grown used to his silence early on. His features were beautiful and chiseled as a stone cliff face, and she began to wonder if she’d have more luck eliciting a response from one. But he only had strength enough for these thoughts that occupied his mind, the flashes of what were supposed to be the last moments of his life. Every cut, every dig of shuriken, kunai and sword were fresh, projected onto any surface he focused. The spray of his own life’s blood on the damp leaves of the forest floor…his wounds harbored a renewed ache with the memory.

  
How she was able to drag him from the place he fell to here he’s sure he will never know, seeing as she lived alone after her fathers death. Facts he couldn’t care less to have known, but nonetheless she never ceased offering them in abundance. The details of her life. Her blabbering left him with a deep pounding in his head. Even now, she continued on. It was worse than Yukimura’s incessant pestering, a level of annoying he never thought achievable. _Yukimura_ …he stumbled again on the name in his mind.

  
Her hands fiddled with his bandages as she inspected and continued to treat his injuries. She pressed a bit too hard, causing him to suck in a pained breath between his teeth.

  
“I know,” she said, “but it’s healing. _That’s good._ ” The last part was little more than a whisper, as if reassuring herself, which of course had done nothing to ease his nerves.

  
He was sure of it now. He really _had_ died out there in the forest and now he was in hell. His own personal hell, unable to move while she tortured him day in and day out.

  
_Day in and day out._

  
She brought him food and gently fed him. Unabashedly she washed his sweat with a cool cloth and dressed him in her fathers old clothes. In the evenings she ground medicinal herbs beside him. The smells were soothing and often times Saizo found himself drifting to sleep at the sound of the scraping and grinding.

  
“Father was more skilled,” she remarked quietly one evening. When she spoke she kept her eyes on the herbs underneath the heavy wheel. Then it was back to the sound of crushing and scraping. Saizo thought the methodical swaying of her arms resembled tree branches being pushed and pulled by the wind.

  
Surely as the seasons yet twice as quick, his health returned. It began with the movement of his limbs and slowly he was able to sit up by himself. Where previously the blood seeped through his bandages several times before the day was out, now they barely needed changing. Quite unnecessary at all, if anyone had asked him.

_____________

 

The first time he spoke she dropped her chopsticks. Their meals were meager and simple. This didn’t surprise him, for someone of her stature. Pickled vegetables she harvested, sometimes she foraged for pond snails to boil and serve with rice. And if they were lucky-fish. As she did every night, while the evenings meal was cooking she moved him closer to the hearth for warmth, always feeding him before herself since his movements were still rather stiff.

  
“Tea,” he choked between chews, voice gruff with the length of disuse.

  
She sat unmoving, speechless, the light chime of the fallen chopsticks bouncing against the floor echoing between them.

  
“ _Now_ we…decide to shut up?” His words were labored, yet the teasing annoyance in his tone was not lost. “Thirsty.”

  
“Right! Sorry,” she scrambled for his tea.

  
Placing his hands over hers on the cup, he brought the quivering liquid to his lips and drained it of its contents. She tried to calm her heart, unaware that he could feel the rapidity simply through their touching hands. She studied his face, regarding up close the shape of his lips and the rhythmic dipping in his throat as he drank. Not that she hadn’t noticed before. Things like the smell and texture of his hair and how large his hands were. To her, he was like fragments of broken glass. Beautiful, glorious and intricately painted shards she happened upon. His face, his mannerisms, his voice—each new piece she found and placed brought her closer to understanding exactly what it was, who it was, she was putting back together.

  
One warm summer day when she stepped outside to tend the garden, left to his own devices, he decided to explore the house. He was still a bit weak, but not enough to keep him from walking about. Along a wall were drawers of various herbs. They were small and rickety, and some of the handles were missing. He opened each one with care, inspecting what lay inside and crushing the brittle deadness between his fingers, examining the ash or blowing it into the wind from his fingertip. Most he recognized by sight or smell.

  
She kept some yukata. Some so small they must be from when she was a child, he thought, by the age of the fabric. Letters and scribblings of her fathers she kept neatly in a wooden box. Cheap hair pins and a small, old container of rouge.

  
“Boring,” he sighed. Not that he had expected any different. The smell of her lingering on the kimono was not disagreeable, and if he wouldn’t hate himself for saying so, he might even admit that he had grown fond of it. He associated it with the comfort of her touch and care, her warm hands, small and delicate.

  
That is when he heard her in the garden. He slid the shoji just enough to see, and watched her working, bent over and pulling at the weeds. The heat of the day seeped in through the crack and he felt his forehead begin to sweat. Still, he watched. Watched as she untied her hair, reached down for a small wooden bucket, and began to splash the well water over herself in order to cool down. Watched as it cascaded across her face and splashed at her shoulders and chest. She should be worried, with the way she looked as the damp cloth stuck to her skin, that someone might see her. Might see the prominent yet delicate outline of her breasts as she tied her wet hair back into place before getting back to work. But there was no one around this area. No one to see the quiet and simple beauty that was _her._ The annoying little lady who saved his pathetic life. No one except Saizo. And despite that warning ringing through his mind— _stop, leave, what are you doing_ —he stayed to watch just a little while longer. Sitting with the confusion of feeling this way about a person for the first time.

  
That evening they sat together, sharing the warmth of the hearth. The flames licked the skin of the fish, eliciting a pleasing aroma and drawing hunger from them both. In the mutual silence the light danced on their faces. Saizo prodded the coals to urge the flame.

  
“Who were you before I found you,” she asked, finally revealing the reason behind her pensive look.

  
So the question finally reached her, he thought. It had surely taken long enough. Perhaps she was waiting for him to be healthy enough to ask. Briefly he smiled.

  
“No one,” he replied.

  
It wasn’t untrue. He’d always been no one. A face in the smoke and fog, a child of darkness. And even now, when everyone thought him dead, he remained no one.

  
“You’ve killed people.”

  
“We’ve moved from questions to accusations, then?”

  
“Lots of people?”

  
“And if I have?”

  
She stood without a word, walking back into the depths of the hall. When she returned she held a bundle of cloth in her hands and it was clear they were dyed in blood. A wadded mess, truly. Still, he recognized them immediately as his own.

  
“When I found you,” she approached him as she spoke, “I thought you may have been attacked by ronin or perhaps bandits.” She sat on her knees in front of him. “That was until I got closer, and saw these…” she unfolded, a bit hurriedly, to reveal his weapons.

 

They were in perfect condition. Just as he had remembered them, _left them_ , except for the blood—his blood of course. He flashed a sardonic smile. Everything he touched became stained with blood, it seemed. Even now, he couldn’t guarantee she wouldn’t be next.

  
“We do love to hoard trash, don’t we.”

  
“They’ll come for you again, won’t they? If they know you’re here.” she asked.

  
Once again she saw herself peering up at that mighty cliff face, asking it to speak. To say anything honest. Only this time it did answer her, in the form of silence. His quiet stare told her what she already knew. They’d kill him. Of course. They’d kill her too, if they saw it necessary. And why wouldn’t it be?

  
It would be best for him to leave, he thought. He was healed enough after all. He still had that stiff ache in his left leg but he could walk enough on his own.

Thanks to her. It wouldn’t surprise him if she wanted him to leave. It was the least he could do, he decided. Let her go back to her dull life. Wed some ordinary man from the village and bear his children. Strong boys that could help her pick and boil and dry the medicinal herbs, carry them into town to sell. A little girl who had her mothers eyes and laugh, smiling and wearing the old yukata he had seen in her room.

  
“We should bury these,” she said.

 

For the first time since she carried his body and lay him on the floor of her home, she saw a look of genuine surprise on his face, endearing though brief as it was…transient as the morning dew. His face fell back into that familiar stoic expression.

  
“Do what you want.”

  
It caught him off guard, to be sure. It would take a special kind of fool to keep him around knowing he would be forever marked for death. There was no amount of burying that could hide who he was or what he had done. Nothing that could protect them if he was ever discovered. Even now, he could catch the scent the blood on his fingertips. Something he felt he would never be rid of.

  
_So foolish_ …what was it that drove her to try and save him time and time again, he asked himself. He wanted to laugh at the foolishness of it all. Yet, for some strange reason that naivety is what seemed to provoked his attraction to her. And when she stood and left for the garden, he silently followed. It was cool and dark. The sliver of moon had been smothered by clouds, creating a beautiful translucent glow. He watched in silence as she packed the last bit of dirt, thinking foolishly to himself that perhaps he could try and imagine his old life buried with it.

  
“There,” she sighed happily. “That should be good. Can’t even tell it’s there, right?”

  
“You’re just a little dumb, aren’t you?”

  
Despite his words, she could make out a glimpse of a smile, even in the darkness.

_____________

 

“It looks like it’s going to be hot again today,” she said, peering up at Saizo in the usual tree he used for napping.

  
“So,” he replied.

  
He had watched her trudge up the hill carrying herbs, tinctures and salves in the pack strapped to her back, up to their little house covered in thicket on the hill. The roof was mossy, the wood worn by wind and rain, but Saizo had to admit he quite enjoyed the isolated quiet. Most of the area had deserted due to the war, and the house lay solitary on this hill overlooking the village.

  
“You were waiting for me,” she grinned, shielding the sun from her eyes as she looked to the branches.

  
“Napping,” she heard him say.

  
He always waited in that same tree when she went into the village to sell medicine. It was obvious he worried, though he would never admit it. _‘It’s the best place for shade this time of day’_ or _‘the breeze is better up here’_ were his usual replies, when in truth it stood close enough to the road, with a clear overlook of the valley, the village below and her path home.

  
“So, come down here. You can help me prepare the rest of this shakuyaku.”

  
“Don’t wanna.”

  
“Then you don’t get to eat. Don’t be lazy,” she warned, _“you live here, you help.”_ She removed a blue patterned cloth from her bag, revealing several skewers of dango she purchased earlier with the money from her sales. It was rare to have treats such as these but she saw no harm in spending a bit for pleasure every now and then. Especially since Saizo’s help had increased her production and their income alike. “I can always eat these by myself.”

  
Before she had the first skewer queued to her lips she felt the rush of air as his body dropped from the tree behind her, sweets plucked right out of her hand.

  
“That’s what I thought,” she smiled.

  
It wasn’t the dango, but her kindness that made him happy. The gesture itself, the thought of her thinking of him, these were things he had never experienced. The old Saizo would laugh at the happiness he felt from receiving a simple treat from a person, but he ate them all the same, her selfless smile filling him with sweetness enough to easily rival any amount of dango.

  
He followed her inside and drank the tea she prepared. He boiled the peony roots for the Toki-shakuyaku-san, telling her to rest before he set them out to dry. It was true that it was hot once again that day. Both their collars hung a bit more openly, revealing their skin moist with sweat. He watched as she fanned herself near the open door in hopes of catching a chance breeze. Though he watched as discreetly as possible, unamenable to any of her ramblings, as usual. He responded in light hums to let her know he was actively listening.

  
“Not good.” She sighed.

  
It was a habit of hers to absentmindedly mutter random bits of her thoughts. No doubt she was referring to the crops. The string of sunny days threatened to wipe some of their harvest. Seeing as it was their livelihood, she sat stewing over it all.

  
“It will rain tonight,” Saizo replied reassuringly.

  
“Really?” she craned her neck out to view the sky. “Are you sure? I don’t see any clouds.”

  
“You can sleep outside tonight if you don’t believe me. See what it gets you,” he grinned. He really did enjoy the way she pouted at his teasing.

  
“Don’t be an ass,” she snapped her fan for punctuation.

  
The signs were clear enough. Saizo knew the herbs would be fine in the end, she really worried too much. But, even if they were not, he would never let her starve. He had many means to sustain them both, unsavory as they may be. But he would never tell her that. Or how far he would be willing to go to make sure she was taken care of.

  
“Well, if that’s the case…” She placed her share of onigiri in front of him, not bothering to explain any further.

  
He appreciated the space she gave him when it rained, even though she was unsure why he needed it in the first place. He would walk enough to seclude himself, and more often than not he contemplated staying gone. Leaving her for good and disappearing. But always he thought of her sad expression in his absence, or how she would search in the trees only to find nothing but leaves. So, wet and tired, he would make his way back to her time and time again.

  
“And what’s this for?” he asked.

  
“Just take them.” She was in no mood for his antics, knowing how weak he sometimes got in the rain.

  
_Always trying to save me,_ he thought with slight annoyance. He slid them back in her direction.

  
“Saizo…”

  
“Don’t need it,” he smiled.

_____________

 

_“Get up.”_

  
The voice was directly in her ear, cold and commanding. _Chilly._ She felt something wet, and in her sleepless daze reached down her body to find she had been uncovered. She discovered her robes, disheveled from sleep, revealing her to the night air and quickly made an effort to fix it.

  
There was a familiar sigh. _‘Unnecessary?’_ Had someone just spoke?

  
“Saizo?” she asked.

  
“Who else.”

  
He appeared now, looming over her. She could see his hair and clothes both weighed down with wetness. It dripped off of him and dotted her skin and futon.

  
“You’re soaking wet.” She reacted without thinking, immediately moving to touch his chest only to have her wrists caught in an icy grip.

  
“We have a visitor.”

  
“What? It’s the middle of the night. Who…” She spoke through the haze of sleep.

  
“ _If I knew that,_ little lady, I wouldn’t be here.”

  
He held his grip on her wrists and for a moment there was not a sound but the rain against the rooftop. Who… _who_. When the realization settled into the pit of her stomach, the idea that he seemed concerned for the first time, she immediately felt sick. She was thankful he had hold of her wrists, kept them steady, for her hands had begun to tremble against her will.

  
“Stay inside,” he instructed, and then he was gone.

  
It was eerie how silent he was. Just how quickly he could move now. It was hard to imagine there was a time she had to feed him herself. She moved through the house. Surveying the rooms she concluded there really wasn’t really anything she could use as a weapon… She crept as silently as possible, stepping slowly on the balls of her feet and rolling to the heel to eliminate any noise. _Was this how he did it?_ But the boards under her feet were old, and no matter how light footed she try to be the creaks protested her steps.

  
Then, through the rain she swore she could hear the faint sound of crying drawing nearer. _Crying?_ And her creaking feet took her to the door.

  
_Slowly_ …she thought. Fingers twitching in the moonlight, heart pounding in her chest and palms, she reached her shaking hands for the shoji to get a peek outside.

  
“Do I need to clean your ears out.”

  
_“Ahh!”_

  
She jumped when Saizo’s voice, laced with annoyance, hissed in her ear from behind. _Well, if I wasn’t shaking enough before_ …she thought.

  
“We were told to stay inside, were we not?”

  
“Don’t sigh at me…and stop popping out of nowhere like a demon,” she whispered angrily.

  
“Only good little girls who listen, stay alive.”

  
“Does that-“

  
“It’s a villager,” he ignored her confused expression, “and you’ll be needing these.”

  
“…Cloths?”

  
She took them from his hands, and not a moment later he was opening the shoji door to reveal the figure of a man in the rain. In his arms a small sniffling boy.  
“Please…” the father pleaded when he reached them, drops of heavy rain beating down on them in the moonlight.

  
The boys leg was bleeding, that much was clear. His fathers feet and shins splotched with mud from the walk up the hill in the rain and a nervous disposition pulling his face downward.

  
“I tried to warn him…don’t play up in that tree tonight,” he heaved.

  
She urged them inside by the hearth, instructing him to set the boy down on the ground while she fetched water to clean the wound.

  
“But…the kizu-ishu…” she questioned. Certainly the general wound surgeon of the village would be the one to take care of a matter like this.

  
“Away,” the father’s voice broke, “there was an outbreak in another village. We thought because of your father…” his voice trailed.

  
“I know the herbs, but-“

  
“She can help.” Saizo cut her off.

  
“I…” The boy was there, what more could she do? Certainly not turn them away, she decided.

  
Hesitantly she approached him, examined the scraped skin only to find that it was not nearly as bad as the bleeding made it seemed. The wound was deep, that was sure, but not enough that it could not be mended. But this would require stitching…she bit her lip.

  
“You have your father’s notes, do you not.” Saizo mentioned as casually as announcing tea.

  
“You… _my room?”_ She huffed.

  
“Is now really the time?”

  
_No, it wasn’t._ She bit her tongue and focused her attention back to cleaning the wound. As quickly as he left he had returned with the a few pages she had saved from her father. The instructions for wound treatment.

  
He was bleeding profusely, but once it was cleaned up properly, removed of mud and debris, she could confirm what she had previously guessed, it truly was not a serious wound. A clean cut, she thought to herself, this would heal quickly.

  
“I can treat this!” She exclaimed. The father’s shoulders fell in relief at once, squeezing his sons hand ardently.

  
“The rosewood…ginseng and peony roots,” she commanded to Saizo, who seemingly had it ready the moment she asked.

  
“This helps it not hurt as much,” she smiled to the boy while applying the rosewood onto the surface of the wound with a smile.

  
“It doesn't hurt, right?” Saizo smiled at the boy. “We are tough, aren’t we. You like climbing trees?”

  
The boy nodded quietly.

 

“So do I. And I used to fall just like you. Do you know how to check for the strongest branches?”

  
_Yes, keep him distracted,_ she thought. A few deep breaths to steady her hands. She triple checked the notes, very aware Saizo had been watching over her from the corner of his eye.

  
After the first stitch went well her anxiety, like a fallen leaf in a river bed, began to drift away. Saizo kept the boys eyes on himself, expertly diverting his attention on something else whenever he winced with pain. Her forearm wiped at her brow and she exhaled with relief looking at the boys cleanly bandaged leg, sending him back to his father’s arms.

  
“I can’t thank you enough,” he held his son tight.

 

“Are you sure you can make the trip back alright?” she asked.

  
“Oh, yes. We’re alright now. His mother will be so relieved to see him back so soon… _thank you.”_

  
“You’re welcome. Please, come see me in the village if you need any more medicine for him.”

  
Waving their gratitude, she watched them head back out in the rain and disappear beneath the hill.

_____________

 

“He really did bleed a lot, didn’t he…” she looked to her red soaked hands, which still seemed to be trembling from the adrenaline of the evening.

  
In fact it was not just her hands. Adrenaline coursed through her whole body, making her clumsy when cleaning herself. A bit lightheaded. She had her hands dipping briefly below the surface of the water as she scrubbed when a pair of larger hands reached in to kindly grab her own. She looked up, a bit surprised to find Saizo’s face just above.

  
“Here,” he held her left hand, scrubbing it gently for her. “If you get this worked up treating a single wound I’m surprised I’m still alive.”

  
He wasn’t sure why he had said that knowing full well it wasn’t the case. Perhaps it was his strange sense of guilt. Her hands were shaking because of him, the reality of his existence and what that meant for her life— _and just how easily it could end because of him._

  
He looked at those hands as he washed them. The same ones that healed his wounds had the power to heal others. He’d washed blood from hands many times, that was true, but never like this. This wasn’t blood that tainted—lingered and marked, like the blood he had known. It’s smell didn’t root itself in your nail beds, haunting you. No, it washed away cleanly. And as he scrubbed the last bit from her skin he decided that while he may not be able to keep her from situations like tonight, he would protect her—protect these hands and hold them until they ceased their trembling.

  
“Thank you,” she said when drying them.

  
He gave her little more than a hum in response.

  
“Now let’s take care of you.”

  
Saizo’s eyes widened in confusion.

 

“You’re soaked through,” she reminded him, “come on, let’s get you out of those clothes.”

  
Back in the room she grabbed something to dry his hair, pausing when he began to disrobe his top half.

  
“Wait, what are you doing?”

  
He could at least have asked her to turn if he wanted to disrobe, she thought.

  
“What does it look like. Besides, it isn’t anything you haven’t seen already,” Saizo teased.

  
“That was different.”

  
“Was it now… _How so?”_

  
Despite not being able to see his face she could feel the presence of his puckish grin. She ignored it and instead continued to dry his hair in silence.

  
“I know I don’t understand what you’re going through, but you’ve got to stop this.”

  
There was no reply, and her heart quickened in it’s anxiousness. She must be really brave or really dumb, she thought, to bring this up again knowing how much he detested speaking on the subject.

  
She looked down to his exposed skin, marred with scars; wounds she treated herself and many acquired before she ever knew him. If this was how he looked on the outside, she wondered just how painfully torn he must be in his heart.

  
“I don’t know what you’ve been through, but clearly running away isn’t working. Maybe, if you talked to me about it…”

  
Silence.

  
“Look, you’re ice cold,” she continued softly before placing her warm hand on his shoulder for comparison. “You’re going to make yourself sick.”

  
“Why don’t you warm me up, then.”

  
“Be serious for once. You’re not changing the subject.”

  
A pause.

  
“And who said I wasn’t serious?”

  
He yanked her down to his level, delighting in the look of shock plastered on her face, and dragged his lips along the shell of her ear in such a way there could be no denying just how serious he was.

  
“You have feelings for me, _don’t you?”_ In his most practiced voice he sounded a bit pained when he asked, drawing out the question like a bit of string he could use to lead her to him. It was a dirty trick no doubt, when he knew full well her feelings, but it was also the surest method to shut her up. His hot breath and sensual whisper had her melting under his touch. Good, he thought.

  
She nodded and he stole her lips in a kiss. He didn’t want to talk anymore about the damned rain. He didn’t want to think about blood. Though, he couldn’t deny those were not the only reasons he kissed her. He wanted to claim her finally, wanted her writhing beneath him with a lustful look to replace the pity in her eyes.

  
He deepened the kiss, stealing any breath, any words or gasps that dared to escape her pretty parted lips. It was practiced and methodical, each flick of his tongue designed to give the most pleasure. And it did. He kissed her onto her back, hot and unrelenting, until they were both dizzy. When he pulled away he lightly dragged her bottom lip with him.

  
“Want me to stop touching you?” he asked, knowing the answer by the heaving in her chest. His hand traced her clavicle delicately before teasing at the neckline of her robe.

  
“No,” she said.

  
“My little lady is so brave…” He perched himself above her, wasting no time in revealing her completely to him.

  
She had never seen him like this. Biting her lip, she felt frozen under the heat of his intense gaze. He looked as if he might devour her whole, and she didn’t think it was possible to regret yet anticipate something so strongly. She felt his body, traced her hands up his arm and down his torso. She’d touched him many times before, her fingers knew the texture of his scars and curves of his muscles, but never like this. Never with the intention to draw him nearer.

  
He brushed down the length of her stomach to elicit a shiver before cupping her breasts with a light squeeze.

  
“Your hands are still cold,” she shivered.

  
“Hmm.”

  
He pulled her hardened nipple into his hot mouth, smiling against skin when she arched in reaction to his tongue’s flitting.

  
“Ah, Saizo…”

  
“Say it again,” he commanded, placing a knee between her legs and savoring the twitch of her limbs underneath him.

  
“Saizo,” she moaned.

  
This is what he wanted to see. So fresh, _sensitive._ It was almost too easy. Not that he minded. It was new to him, too; this hot ache bleeding through him when she called his name in that lustful voice. He wanted to hear it again and again. Saizo. And he could make it the only thing she would ever speak again that night. With his fingers, his tongue alone, he could make it so. But he wanted more than that.

  
“I’m going to claim you completely tonight,” he looked into her eyes when he said it, voice possessive and husky.

  
“I…want you to.”

  
_Of course you do, little lady,_ he thought.

  
Saizo continued to kiss her, bite at her neck-not too rough. No. Not this time, at least. He only teased with his teeth, dragging them across her soft skin and heightening her anticipation of where he would nibble next. He used his hot tongue to play with her ear, rolling her nipples between his roughened fingertips. He touched wherever he pleased, relishing in the texture of her goosebumps forming with her sensitivity, but he didn’t touch here where he knew she wanted to be touched most.

  
He waited until she was desperate beneath him, aching for it, before he gave her the attention she craved. Waited until he felt her press against his propped knee, as he knew she would, rolling her hips to satiate that desire for friction. Now, she was ready.

  
“Desperate already, are we?” He teased.

  
Cold fingers walked slowly down, down her torso. He ghosted over her folds, still refusing to touch.

  
“You want it here, don’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

  
She nodded.

  
“Tell me what you want.”

  
“Touch me,” she said. “I want you to touch me.”

  
Expertly his palm rubbed her clit, a finger slipping in simultaneously, and he drank in her shocked gasp at being entered the first time. She was warm, and wet, clutching on to his digit that curled in the perfect places.

  
He watched that impassioned look on her face with a slanted gaze. He enjoyed this part. The flushed look, wetness coating her puckered lips and the delicate tremble of her breasts as he finally gave her what she secretly wanted.

  
If he so desired, he could bring her over the edge right then. But he moved slowly, followed the lifting and rocking of her hips against his palm in a gentle, intimate fashion. He took pleasure in watching her, paying close attention to her face and letting her set the pace; every now and then tweaking a nipple to stimulate her. And when she was ready he added another finger to curl against her.

  
“S- _ah!”_ She jerked.

  
Saizo tilted his head in satisfaction. She was close, but he wasn’t about to let her come just yet. In truth, his own length was aching painfully. He’d like nothing more than to flip her over and have his way with her right then, but he wasn’t done just yet. He knew he could push her further.

  
“Stay with me, little lady.” He removed his fingers from her core and brought them to his lips. “Hmm,” he hummed pleasantly while sucking them clean.

  
The sight of him positioning himself, his face sinking slowly between her legs, had her pulse pounding in her ears. He looped his hands around her thighs and felt the tension in her legs.

  
“Relax,” he reassured her.

  
“Easy for you to say,” she laughed nervously.

  
He blew cool breaths on her, massaged her hips a bit, and when she calmed enough he curved his tongue and traced all the way up between her folds.  
“Ah!”

  
Her legs tensed, fighting to buck her hips against the strength in his hands. Though he flashed a smile, his voice was powerful and commanding.

  
_“Relax.”_ He hissed.

 

She melted instantly. Obediently.

  
“Good girl,” he pulled her hips closer to his face, tilting her so he had more control, her bottom lifting from the floor and legs hooked over his shoulders.

  
He began with a flat tongue, lapping at random intervals to get her used to the feel. Gradually his pace quickened. The taste on his tongue, the scent of her and the rapid puffs of air as she lost herself to his control were all encouraging him to push her further.

  
“Delicious,” he crooned.

  
When he sucked on her clit she lurched, covering her mouth with her hand to muffle her screams. Saizo replaced his mouth with a finger and began to rub in slow circles.

  
“Hands above your head, _hm?_ I want to hear you.”

  
She did as she was told, much to his delight. He worked her with his mouth once more, pressing his face in deeper and using every bit of his skill to draw out her voice. When he hummed into her fold she twitched with the vibrations, dripping a honeyed moan into the air.

  
“Mm…s-so good- _ah!”_

  
Saizo plunged his tongue in deeper, sucked harder. Narrowed eyes peaked up to watch her face from between clenched thighs. He watched her wriggling torso lift and quiver ecstasy.

  
“Saizo, I’m-“

  
“Dear, oh dear. We are enjoying ourselves aren’t we?” Saizo tenderly kissed the inside of her thigh.

  
She knew he was relishing in his control, teasing her like this. But she didn’t care. There was a tremendous build up inside her. Electric heat lighting her every nerve on fire, begging to be released.

  
“Yes…Mm,” she hummed.

  
“You’re almost there,” he teased her with his fingers. Enough to hold her pleasure but not enough to send her over.

  
“ _Y-Yes.”_

  
“Good girls who beg get what they want,” he pressed a bit harder into her clit to give her a taste.

  
“Please…”

  
“We can beg better than that, can’t we?” He simpered, brows pressed together.

  
“Saizo, p-please…I need,” she wet her lips with her tongue, “I want…to…”

  
“ _Mmn,_ what a lovely sight this is.” He could view this expression forever. Eyes lidded in desperation for him, puckered lips wet and glistening. Oh, the things he could do with those lips…

  
But, another time. He was a patient man.

  
He dove back in to her, only this time he added his fingers once more to tease her insides. It took only a moment to have her unraveling before him. Her sweet moans filled his ears like the most beautiful song, and she writhed so hard with her release that he struggled to hold her still. When her body fell loose he rolled her cream on his tongue with a pleasured hum.

  
“You did so well, little lady…but we aren’t done yet.”

  
Tender lips brushed the crown of her head before he was settled in behind her, but not before he disrobed completely, stroking his stiff length for good measure. He was warm now, chest pressed against the moist skin of her back.

  
Her cheeks were dusted in a gorgeous peach. He brushed the damp hair from her neck with care and placed a kiss there before positioning her snuggly against him. Slowly he slipped himself between her thighs, but not entering her yet. No. He’d give her a moment to recover.

  
He took his time; thrusting slowly to rub against her wet folds. The lines of her body called out to him, leaving no place his hands didn’t roam with a delicate, curious nature. A finger brushing underneath the swell of her breast, a blow of cool air around her neck and chest to harden her nipples before he brushed over them playfully.

  
It was when his length found itself gliding against her sensitive nub that she reacted. The delicious sensation had her aching to feel him inside of her and without realizing it, she was pressing back against him with a roll of her hips.

  
“That’s my girl…are you wanting for me?”

  
She answered, though slightly hesitant, _“yes.”_

  
Then she felt the tip of him pressing against her entrance. Her first reaction was to stiffen and hold her breath but Saizo’s mouth, his sultry voice, was right there at her ear, his hands doing their work to sooth and caress her back into him.

  
“It will be alright,” he said calmly, “trust me. I won’t hurt you.”

  
It was entering her now, slowly but surely. There was a familiar teasing of fingers between her legs which helped open her up for him, and when he was almost fully in she felt him shiver with a tiny growl. Low and needy. She never knew he could sound that way; and she wanted more.

  
He played with her chest from behind, observed with ardor the bite of her lip the moment he was fully sheathed. He paused out of kindness, wriggling only slightly until he was sure she was ready for more.

  
“ _Mmn,”_ her hand reached back to find his hip, holding on to him for stability and comfort.

  
He pulled back slowly, letting her feel just how hard and long he was before pushing back into her again. He kept this slow pace for a while, nibbling at her earlobe, neck and shoulders while he thrust in lithesome motions from behind.

  
“Follow my movements,” he took control of her hips, guiding her, grinding and rolling her back against him. The sound of her arousal when he drove himself into her— _the slick heat_ — all proof of how badly she wanted him…he could have spent himself already.

  
“ _Aah,”_ she felt him push in deeper, hitting a spot inside that had her legs stiffening and head tilting back.

  
“There it is.” Saizo gripped her chin with a grin, tilted her face back towards him, still unrelenting in the driving of his hips. “Show me your face when you come undone.”

  
They locked eyes, and with that he picked up his pace. Rougher—deep. It was rhythmic and practiced, he held her steady and felt the pleasure mounting inside her walls. Felt the soft plush of her ass slamming against him fervently and watched her breasts bounce in unison with his rapid thrusts.

  
“ _Mmn,_ yes…there- _ah!”_ She lost the ability to keep up with his pace, her hips ceasing to function properly the more the tension inside of her built up. A shock rolled through her every time he slammed inside and hit her there.

  
“Let me hear your voice, little lady,” Saizo urged her through a pant. He was shaking a bit himself now, low pleasured hums vibrated from his chest and through her back.

  
“ _Nn,_ Saizo,” she drew his name out within her pleasured whine. The thought of him behind her, gaining as much pleasure from this as she was, ended up unravelling her completely.

  
He let her climax, rolling a finger over her clit while slowing the movements of his hips. Her expression was beautiful and he pulled her lips to his own to kiss her deeply, drinking in her most sultry moans for himself, until he was ready to pull away.

  
Before she could recover her breath and vision he had already spent himself outside of her and begun to clean up. His eyes searched her over with tenderness, and he prepared a warm cloth for her pains.

  
Too sore and tired to even make tea, she lay down savoring the sweet ache in places she never even knew one _could_ ache.

  
The weather still hadn’t let up. Now that it was quiet they could hear fury outside. Slipping soundlessly back next to her in the futon, Saizo's gaze fixated in the distance as he listened to the wind blow the rain against the wall in waves.

  
“Just there,” she said softly.

  
He felt her finger press between his brows in that familiar way, smoothing that crease.

  
“Saizo, I…” her voice was meek.

  
He pulled her close, letting her head rest on his arm. “I know. Go to sleep now, little lady.”

  
In the middle of the night he woke with a start, having sworn he heard his name being called from the dark recesses of the room. He waited to see a familiar figure reveal itself from the corner, as it always did. ‘The village,’ they would call to him. But there was nothing. Only the ghosts of Iga haunting his thoughts.

  
“ _Sai_ …z-“ she cooed in her sleep before rolling over.

  
Hm…he sighed through a smile. Slinking a hand around her waist he pulled her back to him protectively, content with watching her sleeping expressions until his eyes refused to stay open.


End file.
